Musk says Tesla cutting 9 percent of jobs

(Reuters) - Tesla Inc is cutting about 9 percent of jobs across the company, billionaire Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Tuesday, as it seeks to reduce costs without endangering the critical ramp up of production of its Model 3 sedan.

Tweeting pictures of an email he said had been leaked to media, Musk said that the cuts were part of a simplification of Tesla's management structure promised last month.

"As part of this effort, and the need to reduce costs and become profitable, we have made the difficult decision to let go of approximately 9 percent of our colleagues across the company," the email read.

"These cuts were entirely from our salaried population and no production associates were included, so this will not affect our ability to reach Model 3 production targets in the coming months."

Tesla's latest annual filing last December showed it had 37,543 full-time employees.

Up nearly 7 percent earlier on Tuesday, shares of the company trimmed gains to stand 3.5 percent higher at $344 by early afternoon.

(Reporting by Laharee Chatterjee and Vibhuti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Patrick Graham)